


Wishful

by havetaoque



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Bullying, Depression, Dreams, Hope, Kind of Happy ending?, M/M, Odin's A+ Parenting, Pre-Relationship, Sad, Sad Loki (Marvel), Self-Esteem, drunk, tony stark - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 22:38:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12022530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havetaoque/pseuds/havetaoque
Summary: A dream is all he has, but maybe it's enough.





	Wishful

Loki threw himself onto his bed. With an abrupt flick of his fingers, the thump of tankards, the inebriated speeches of valor, and the noticeable lack of clinking utensils (because his brother was a savage along with all of his friends) cut off in startlingly loud silence, as though a coil of wire had snapped and sprung back.

Loki’s ears rang in his empty bedroom.

He was hungry, but he could sneak out and eat later on his own. The chilly predawn hours tended to be the best time to walk the palace in search of a meal in solitude, since Thor’s friends were likely to be deep in slumber. Loki could just picture them all, sprawled together on couches and beneath the tables, limbs tangled and long hair fanned out. Even in sleep they took up too much room, invaded one another’s space.

Loki shuddered, and he didn’t know whether it was to cringe away from the thought of so much careless contact or the casual intimacy of sleeping beside a trusted friend that he had never experienced.

But he was above such things. While the others caroused and rolled in the dust of the training grounds like Midgardian beasts, not even bothering to train properly, Loki worked his way through the palace library, as he had done for the past eight centuries. Reading was preferable to roughhousing after all. He had no desire to be mocked for his magic and shoved into the dirt any longer. After the first fifty years or so, when he could navigate the training ground by taste alone, he had stopped laughing along with them.

Thor’s friends still mocked him at meals to the approval of Thor’s oblivious laughter, but Loki ignored them. Occasionally, he would bite back with barbs they had not the wits to answer, but that grew dull and earned him only a single disapproving eye from the throne.

Perhaps he would travel for a time. Loki rolled onto his side and pillowed his head on a heap of soft furs. He could become someone else, a son who wasn’t a disappointment, a friend to someone who would appreciate and trust him, a – dare he think himself worthy – a lover to someone who might be kind to him.

He could be any of those things to anyone. Loki had often assumed other forms to speak with people when he was younger, but the excitement of friendship had faded into something bitter when his own ruse was clearly the preferable companion. Anyone but he would suffice.

Wrapped in the warmth of the furs that trapped his own body heat close to his skin, Loki exhaled softly and blinked heavily as sleep took him. He dreamed of a sad man imprisoned in a tower of glass and metal. The man’s eyes were red-rimmed and wide. Loki reached out to him tentatively and let his hand hover just above the man’s shoulder, not daring to touch, though he knew it was only a dream and the recoil would not be real.

Brown eyes blinked at him, confused and clouded with alcohol, before the man sighed, letting out a breath that rattled his entire body. Loki leapt back and watched as the man slid down and shifted until he was sprawled across the cold cement floor at Loki’s feet.

Loki sunk to his knees before he could tell himself to keep his distance and peered at the man. He seemed to be asleep.

Loki placed the pads of his fingertips on the man’s cheek, pressing lightly at the supple skin. The man’s stubble dragged against his fingertips with a sensation that made Loki shiver, and when he pulled his hand back reluctantly, the man was looking at him; he didn’t scowl or turn away or shut his eyes.

Loki swallowed down a hopeful sound and opened his eyes to the ceiling of his bedroom.

He rose and began to pack his things. He would look for this sad man in the tower of glass and metal, even though he knew it was only a dream.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been _dying_ to write frostiron for so long. Here's my first attempt, a sort of meditation on sad!Loki. 
> 
> Unfortunately, I cannot promise updates on anything else or anything new, since my grad schedule is packed, but inspiration struck me amidst stress-eating Knorr pasta sides at midnight and writing for a theory class.


End file.
